Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg raised the possibility that Facebook could start paying news publishers to feature their “high-quality news” on the social network, declaring that the company could “potentially have a direct relationship with publishers.”
According to Recode, Zuckerberg “wants to create a section of his social network that would be devoted to ‘high-quality news,’ and may pay publishers that share their stuff there.”
“We talked about the role quality journalism plays in building informed communities and the principles Facebook should use for building a news tab to surface more high-quality news, including the business model and ecosystem to support it,” declared Zuckerberg, adding that Facebook could “potentially have a direct relationship with publishers to make sure that their content is available, if it’s really high-quality content.”
“That’s definitely something that I think we should be thinking about
If Facebook becomes a publisher, it could lose its immunity under Section 230
After Facebook announced it would be publishing exclusive content from mainstream, left-wing news outlets last year, Breitbart News’ Senior Tech Reporter Allum Bokhari noted, “Now that Facebook has announced its program of publishing exclusive news content from establishment and left-leaning outlets, it will be much harder for the company to escape the charge that it is no longer a neutral, unbiased platform.”
“This could mean Facebook falls outside the bounds of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which currently grants it legal immunity for content posted by Facebook users,” he continued. “If Facebook is held legally responsible for the billions of posts published on the platform, it would be a fundamental threat to its business model.”